Thursday, November 29, 2012

As the AL MVP debate raged on this fall, some fans were actually discussing the NL MVP (yes, they gave one of those this year). While much of the debate centered on eventual winner Buster Posey and runner-up Ryan Braun, there was also plenty of support for Padres third baseman Chase Headley among others. Headley compiled some impressive statistics during the year - a .376 OBP, 31 home runs, 263 times on base (good for third in the NL) and 301 total bases (fifth) - while playing half his games in the pitchers paradise of Petco Park. He was also one of the best third baseman in the majors defensively
.
Beyond his great individual performance, some of Headley's backers, claimed that Headley deserved the MVP because the Padres would have had virtually no offense without him. They got a good half season from Carlos Quentin, but no other Padre provided much more than average offensive production for the season. Their argument was that he was so much better than the rest of the team that it made him more valuable than any other National League player.

Some would argue that a great hitter surrounded by other very good batters provides even more to his team than one solo star because because his interaction with other good hitters creates more runs than one player can provide by himself. Regardless of who is right, it leads us to an interesting question: Which player accounted the greatest portion of his team's offense?

One simple way to answer the question is with Runs Participated In (RPI) and team runs scored. As a reminder, RPI = runs scored + RBI + Runs Assisted - Home runs. On a team that scored just 651 runs in 2012, Headley had 228 RPI for a Runs Participated Percentage (RPI%) of 35.0. In other words, he played a role in over a third of the Padres runs. Table 1 below shows that he led the league in that category followed by Pirates outfielder Andrew McCutchen with 34.1.

Table 1: NL Runs Participated In Percentage Leaders, 2012

Player

Team

RPI

Team
Runs

RPI%

Chase
Headley

SDN

228

651

35.0

Andrew
McCutchen

PIT

222

651

34.1

David
Wright

NYN

209

650

32.2

Starlin
Castro

CHN

189

613

30.8

Matt
Holliday

SLN

232

765

30.3

Andre
Ethier

LAN

193

637

30.3

Freddie
Freeman

ATL

212

700

30.3

Martin
Prado

ATL

206

700

29.4

Jay
Bruce

CIN

196

669

29.3

Ryan
Zimmerman

WAS

212

731

29.0

Buster
Posey

SFN

208

718

29.0

Jason
Heyward

ATL

201

700

28.7

Jose
Reyes

MIA

174

609

28.6

Ryan
Braun

MIL

221

776

28.5

Alfonso
Soriano

CHN

174

613

28.4

Table 2 shows that the American League leader on RPI% was MVP third baseman Miguel Cabrera with 34.8%. The next three hitters on the list - Joe Mauer of the Twins (32.0), Billy Butler of the Royals (29.9), Jason Kipnis of the Indians (29.5) and Josh Willingham also of then Twins (29.4) - all played on teams with relatively weak offenses.

Table 2: AL Runs Participated In Percentage Leaders, 2012

Player

Team

RPI

Team
Runs

RPI%

Miguel
Cabrera

DET

253

726

34.8

Joe
Mauer

MIN

224

701

32.0

Billy
Butler

KCA

202

676

29.9

Jason
Kipnis

CLE

197

667

29.5

Josh
Willingham

MIN

206

701

29.4

Mike
Trout

ANA

222

767

28.9

Robinson
Cano

NYA

228

804

28.4

Alex
Gordon

KCA

191

676

28.3

Prince
Fielder

DET

205

726

28.2

Edwin
Encarnacion

TOR

201

716

28.1

Adam
Jones

BAL

198

712

27.8

Shin-Soo
Choo

CLE

185

667

27.7

Kyle
Seager

SEA

171

619

27.6

Josh Hamilton

TEX

223

808

27.6

Albert
Pujols

ANA

207

767

27.0

Finally, Table 3 lists the RPI% for Tigers players. Not surprisingly, the next highest percentages after Cabrera belonged to Prince Fielder (28.2) and Austin Jackson (26.4).

Table 3: Tigers Runs Participated In Percentage Leaders, 2012

Player

RPI

RPI%

Miguel
Cabrera

253

34.8

Prince
Fielder

205

28.2

Austin
Jackson

192

26.4

Delmon
Young

146

20.1

Jhonny
Peralta

135

18.6

Brennan
Boesch

134

18.5

Andy
Dirks

111

15.3

Alex
Avila

103

14.2

Quintin
Berry

95

13.1

Omar
Infante

62

8.5

Ramon
Santiago

58

8.0

Gerald
Laird

43

5.9

Ryan
Raburn

42

5.8

Danny Worth

23

3.2

Don
Kelly

21

2.9

The information used here was obtained free of charge from and is
copyrighted by Retrosheet. Interested parties may contact Retrosheet
at Retrosheet.org.